2.5m medical tourist hospital visits forecast for 2018

The Kasikorn Research Centre claims that foreign patients are expected to make 3.42 million visits to Thai hospitals in 2018, including 2.5 million for medical tourism and 920,000 by expatriates.

The Kasikorn Research (K-Research) Centre forecasts that foreign patients will continue to be a key driver for the growth of the hospital business in Thailand in 2018.

Foreign patients are expected to make 3.42 million visits to Thai hospitals, including 2.5 million for medical tourism and 920,000 by expatriates.

In 2017, foreign patients made 3.3 million visits to Thai hospitals, with 2.4 million for medical tourism and 900,000 by expats.

These figures are not numbers of medical tourists as they count the number of visits to hospital departments. One person on one day may visit more than one department and one person may visit a hospital several times for the same medical problem.

The number of Chinese tourists to Thailand is increasing and K-Research predicts 40,000 Chinese medical tourists in 2018, particularly for cancer and fertility treatment, as well as cosmetic surgery.

It claims that there were 500,000 Chinese medical tourists in 2017 and 2018 will see between 630,000 and 650,000, but these figures are not verified.